OneNote is so awesome

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JayADee

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# 213894 18-Apr-2017 06:34

This has got to be one of the most useful programs ever.

I use OneNote to keep track of nearly everything, including tax info. (I back it up so it's in 3 places) You can also export sections into PDF etc.

I keep an ongoing record of invoices paid and due, asset register, etc. etc. on pages dedicated to each category in a OneNote notebook labelled by tax year.

Did you know if you select a list (invoice names and numbers with amounts paid, say) in OneNote you can automatically make an excel spreadsheet out of it with one button click and it saves right there on the same page? Another button click opens the spreadsheet for editing in excel. Saves heaps of effort.

Great little program. :)

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2 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 1766484 18-Apr-2017 08:05

I completely agree. I work closely with a colleague at work - we have a OneNote directory at a shared location, letting us both collaborate on a document at once, in near real-time, almost like GoogleDocs.

The other thing I like is when researching products, dragging web pages into OneNote, it includes the source URL as a reference. No more wondering "where did I get that?" day later.

Oh, and on a Microsoft Surface (or equivalent slate device), dragging your documents into OneNote so you can scribble notes with the stylus. Invaluable at meetings. I never take paper notes to meetings any more. Even better, OneNote will convert your scribbles to text to create searchable keywords. OneNote has a very powerful search feature.

kiwifidget

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# 1766493 18-Apr-2017 08:28

I had a quick look at OneNote last week, as it came up as an alternative to a program called TreePad, which was recommended by a colleague.

First impressions looked good but I havent gone any further with it as I would like to get some training first.

Life is too short to remove USB safely.

networkn

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# 1766537 18-Apr-2017 09:38

One person supports this post

I have tried to use it a few times, but I don't like the unstructured layout. I know for most people that's what they want.

Coil

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# 1766540 18-Apr-2017 09:44

I try to use it at work for note taking. I heard its good for shopping notes etc between phones and computers. (Works over cloud)
Yet to understand how to use it properly but i had always been the first to disable all the toolbars and preach hate on One Note :)

toyonut

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# 1766585 18-Apr-2017 10:10

It is a great tool for semi structured notes. I like the sharing aspect especially. We used to have a team notebook stored in SharePoint at my old job and everyone could edit, view and add to the notes. Search is good on it too so it was a lot quicker to find things than storing them as documents on SharePoint proper.

Also when you have it installed Win - Shift - S brings up a neat screenshot tool that allows you to drop the screenshot directly into a notebook or just copy it to the clipboard. Not sure if that will clash with the shortcut in Creators update or not. I don't have OneNote on my home PC and I don't have Creators on my work one.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

linw

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# 1766610 18-Apr-2017 10:52

I'm sure it is good but I couldn't get into it. Perhaps, because I use Treepad for keeping track of stuff.

I keep thinking I should get into OneNote, though!

Benjip

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# 1766636 18-Apr-2017 11:17

I'm a fan too. It's especially great on the iPad Pro, using the Apple Pencil to just scribble notes in a meeting which are then right there on your Mac once it syncs. And then you can just type stuff on top of it when you're on Mac/desktop.

nathan

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Microsoft

# 1766651 18-Apr-2017 11:43

TimA:

I try to use it at work for note taking. I heard its good for shopping notes etc between phones and computers. (Works over cloud)
Yet to understand how to use it properly but i had always been the first to disable all the toolbars and preach hate on One Note :)

on a Windows (10) PC try the OneNote version from the Windows Store, personally I find it better from the toolbar point of view, and its the future direction of the app anyway

ubergeeknz

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Vocus

# 1766656 18-Apr-2017 11:53

I started using EverNote a while back, and find it very useful, but the formatting can be a bit limited. Has anyone switched from EverNote to OneNote and how does it compare?

dafman

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# 1766663 18-Apr-2017 12:05

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I've had a quick look in the past, but Google Keep is sooooo good

TinyTim

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# 1766973 18-Apr-2017 20:12

I'm a big user of OneNote - never used Evernote. Reviews said Evernote has excellent tagging which I don't think Onenote does very well. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

ANglEAUT

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# 1767032 18-Apr-2017 23:26

TinyTim: ... Reviews said Evernote has excellent tagging which I don't think Onenote does very well. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

I like Evernote and have been using it on & off over the years. Now that my wife has got a Surface tablet, I got her to start using OneNote.

Pro OneNote

I like the tabbed book / page interface of OneNote
The text recognition of your notes when using the stylus is transparent & really useful.
So is the OCR when scanning in receipts, etc.
With a Microsoft account, you can have OneNote on many Windows devices, all auto sync'ed in the background.

Anti OneNote

Can't embed more than 100KB into OneNote document
Can't get links to other documents stored in OneDrive to work. Links only work on the computer that initially created them.
Over lapping text blocks when editing elsewhere on the page
OneNote notebook file has a web page icon on the local file system that links to the web version of the notebook. It does not open the notebook with the local version of OneNote
OneNote notebook name can conflict with local folders of the same name. But the error message is not very clear (I mention this, because the idea was that I have a notebook called "Business" and then a folder with the same name for supporting / linked documents. This was not possible. The folder for supporting docs had to be named something else, like "Business-Docs")

Pro EverNote

Very feature rich
Very good tagging. As you type tags, it suggests your previous entries.
- Can also suggest tags (Don't know if this is site dependant)
Easy to search. Can find old info easily.
Extensions for all the browsers. Browser extension can also show relevant saved notes after the capture.
Different capture modes for web pages:
- Full page captures the web page as it exists
- Simplified articles tries to capture only the relevant article text (with varying degrees of results. But atleast you can try to resize the content capture field. OneNote does not allow that)
- Screenshot of the full web page
- Screenshot of only a section
Like mentioned above for OneNote, captures the URL with the web page
Easy to clean-up captured content. As mentioned above, OneNote can have overlapping blocks of text while EverNote is more like a continuous single sheet of paper.

Anti EverNote

Free version only limited to two devices

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

UHD

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# 1767040 19-Apr-2017 02:47

nathan:

TimA:

I try to use it at work for note taking. I heard its good for shopping notes etc between phones and computers. (Works over cloud)
Yet to understand how to use it properly but i had always been the first to disable all the toolbars and preach hate on One Note :)

on a Windows (10) PC try the OneNote version from the Windows Store, personally I find it better from the toolbar point of view, and its the future direction of the app anyway

This is one of my pet peeves with Windows 10/Office365 currently, I tap the windows key and search for One Note and two apps appear. If you accidentally click the wrong one then it defaults for next time I search for One Note.

JayADee

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# 1767050 19-Apr-2017 07:21

I use OneNote on both my surface pro 4 and iPad, syncs seamlessly. I've been using OneNote for years but every once in a while I realise again how great it is. I'll have to have a look at the app version.

throbb

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# 1767059 19-Apr-2017 07:56

IcI:

TinyTim: ... Reviews said Evernote has excellent tagging which I don't think Onenote does very well. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Anti OneNote

Can't embed more than 100KB into OneNote document - I have no trouble embedding big files just tested it with an 8mb file and had no issues
Can't get links to other documents stored in OneDrive to work. Links only work on the computer that initially created them. - All our meeting minutes are taken in onenote in a shared notebook, attendees often link to one drive files
Over lapping text blocks when editing elsewhere on the page
OneNote notebook file has a web page icon on the local file system that links to the web version of the notebook. It does not open the notebook with the local version of OneNote - You open in the web version once, then choose the open in local option, from then onwards it should be available locally
OneNote notebook name can conflict with local folders of the same name. But the error message is not very clear (I mention this, because the idea was that I have a notebook called "Business" and then a folder with the same name for supporting / linked documents. This was not possible. The folder for supporting docs had to be named something else, like "Business-Docs")

I've found Onenote amazing since I started using it, it used to be one of those programs I had but never used. It can be as structured as you want. It can do a lot of pretty amazing things, the bad thing is a lot of those amazing things are kind of hidden and not very well documented.

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